A member of parliament shot, stabbed, and killed as she sought to meet with her constituents, a Polish man dead after he and two friends were subject to an attack by a group of teens, hate crime up throughout England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with a record 58% increase in recorded incidents following the referendum – and now Nigel Farage is at it again, vowing more violence on British streets if he and his intolerant mobs don’t get their way with regard to Brexit.
Back in May, in the midst of campaigning for a ‘Leave’ vote, Farage stated that violent xenophobic outbursts were a logical consequence of Britain’s membership of the European Union. In an interview with the BBC, he said:
‘I think it’s legitimate to say that if people feel they’ve lost control completely, and we have lost our control of borders completely as members of the European Union, and if people feel that voting doesn’t change anything, then violence is the next step.’
Swallowing hard, perhaps as he sensed the mask slipping, he added ‘I find it difficult to contemplate it happening here, but nothing’s impossible’. This came on the same day that he suggested ‘In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way’, a viewpoint which he has conveniently ignored ever since the vote went by 51.89%-48.11% in his favour.
Now – following the ruling by three High Court judges that the government must consult parliament before invoking Article 50 – Farage has again summoned the spectre of savagery in the name of virulent nationalism. Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, seated alongside Gina Miller, the lead claimant in the High Court case, Farage warned of a ‘great betrayal’, claiming that any failure to promptly depart Europe would unleash ‘political anger the likes of which none of us in our lifetimes have ever witnessed’.
Asked by Marr if this meant ‘disturbance in the streets’ should parliament in any way obstruct the easy progress of a hard Brexit, Farage responded ‘Yes, I think that’s right’. He also outlined plans for a march on the Supreme Court on the opening day of the government’s appeal, as if to cow the unprecedented full panel of eleven judges into overturning the High Court’s decision.
The march, to be headed by Farage, is being organised by the campaign Leave.EU, backed and funded by millionaire donors including Arron Banks, Richard Tice, and Jim Mellon. Leave.EU has indicated that it will seek to crowdfund £100,000 to pay for barristers to represent its side of the argument in the court action. The march will see protesters wander from Trafalgar Square along Whitehall to Parliament Square, in a heated endeavour to make the not particularly coherent point ‘Brexit means Brexit’.
Though the June referendum established nothing about the nature of Britain’s exit from the EU, and while Farage has admitted that the vote was only ‘advisory’, still he is adamant that politicians must pursue a hard Brexit or be branded cheats and traitors. For Farage, this means no access to the single market and no freedom of movement.
Perhaps the familiar slogans ‘British jobs for British workers’, ‘British rights for British citizens’, and ‘English votes for English laws’ could be subsumed by the more general truism, ‘British prejudice for British people’. American exceptionalism has nothing on this. Whether it is inciting violence, normalising bloodshed, conjuring false fears of a Turkish horde, or celebrating misogyny, the racist and duplicitous Nigel Farage – along with willing cohorts in the Tory party – is smothering Britain as it lies sleeping.
